Ro-Kyu-Bu SS – 08

This episode featured two different games for the 6th graders, a hard one which turned out like I expected, and another that gave Airi a chance to show how much she’s grown. Also, drunk Tomoka!

Vs the 5th Graders – Slaying the Wild Boar

If the 5th graders were facing Tomoka’s team without Subaru, they probably would have won. If they were facing a Subaru-coached team whose players weren’t as good as these five, they probably would have won. Unfortunately for them, those weren’t the teams they were facing.

The thing that didn’t make sense to me was the defense-offense split thing that Subaru thought up. So Saki and Airi were concentrating on defense, while the other three were on offense. Were all five of them not playing both? Because if not, I have no idea how the 5th graders didn’t just overwhelm them on both sides, even when they started getting tired. It’s hard to guard five with two.

That aside though, what I especially liked was Saki vs Masami. Masami’s inexperience showed when being pushed just a little bit out of her comfort zone made her start bricking all over the place. Well, that and she’s a little girl who probably doesn’t have much arm strength, so forcing her a little further back put the basket largely out of her range. Saki’s cool attitude, her control of the court, and her ability to play mind games against her opponents are why she’s my favorite player on the 6th grader’s team.

It had to come down to Mimi vs Tomoka in the end, though. Mimi has some seriously ridiculous moves, but as for Tomoka’s buzzer beating floater…I called it! That didn’t really lessen my enjoyment though. It was a good move for an exciting finish to a good game.

Against Suzuritani – Airi’s Basketball

The match against Suzuritani wasn’t very interesting basketball-wise, but it clearly showed just how much Airi has grown. Where once she was being pushed around, here it was her putting the pressure on Aya. I think her onii-chan’a manly tears all episode really say it best – Airi has grown a lot as a player, and it showed in their resounding defeat of Suzuritani. Now she’s Aya’s onee-sama, d’awwwww!

Uniforms, Swimsuits, & Non-Alcoholic Beer

What did I just watch I don’t even!! The party bit was random as hell. First of all, the uniforms were a nice touch, though Maho’s papa sure got a prototype made suspiciously quickly. But what was with the sudden swimsuits!? And the swimsuit meido, and Miho-nee, and everyone running around spraying each other with non-alcoholic beer. I mean, it was funny, but it was so weirdly out there that I just kinda blanked out. I dunno, weird stuff.

Then of course, there was Tomoka getting drunk off non-alcoholic beer. Screw logic, that was funny! You could really tell that Tomoka is going to be an adorably loving waifu later on, and that she really loves Subaru already. Oh, and she’s a little bit perverted. Subaru smells good? Tomoka no ecchi!

Looking Ahead – TsubaHii’s Match

I assumed that TsubaHii were going to be pulled back into the fold after their meltdown with a little persuasion, but it looks like the Suzuritani mystery girl is inadvertently pushing them to do exactly what they need to do – keep playing basketball. Words won’t matter until they realize that winning isn’t everything, and that they actually do love playing the game! More on that next time, I’m sure.

tl;dr:@StiltsOutLoud – The basketball was okay, but the character growth & drama was great. Also, drunk nuzzling Tomoka! #rokyubu 08

Random thoughts:

Look at those manly tears. What is this, Fist of the North Star? Not that I’m complaining.

As someone who rarely – or not at all – drinks, I had my share of hauling people too drunk for their good into their own homes and beds. Including certain girl.
As someone who got this far without ever drifting into dangerous waters of criminal accusations, I can say there are few things more unsightly than truly drunk person.
I was, also, totally friendzoned, but that is another matter…

A truly drunk, inexperienced person perhaps, and of a certain personality that can’t control themselves well. As with most things, after a few times you learn your limits and learn how to be respectable and at least entertaining when you’ve had a bit too much of the tipple. Trust me, I’d know ; )

I missed the part of the show that was all game action like we got these last couple of episodes. The funny part is the bgm just gets you excited since it’s the same composer for Saki. No crazy basketball here though haha.

Yeah, it was a bit lacking this episode. Really though, what I’m looking forward to is the final payoff from this whole 5th graders vs 6th graders stuff, so once that game was over I wasn’t much interested in the Suzuritani match. Probably good that they got it over with pretty quickly.

Here is my take on the offense-defense strategy thought up by Subaru:
i) The 5th graders were killing the 6th graders by sprinting up and down court and having uncontested layups. So Subaru held back Airi and Saki on defense so that there will also be someone contesting down that end of the court. It is not that the other 3 players didn’t play defense. Remember that Maho and Tomoka got a steal each as well. The idea is to always have someone contesting to at least slow down the offense or to come up with a stop completely. The other way would be for the 6th graders to try and outhustle the 5th graders, but that would be even more dangerous to try and play to their pace. Slowing the game was the best thing they could have done.

ii) Having Airi under the rim is a brilliant move. Imagine a couple of elementary school kids trying to do layups against someone line Yao Ming. It ain’t happening. Hence, they have to fall back onto jump shots, where the shooting percentage is significantly lower.

iii) The downside with strategy (ii) is that Masami is a bloody good shooter. But Saki has the best basketball IQ out of the whole team (while Tomoka is the best talent wise and Airi is just plain dominant) and was able to follow Subaru’s advice and adjust when needed to throw Masami off her game.

iv) The most successful offense is the fast break. And having Tomoka and Maho run each time and Hina shooting if required was the best way to counter what the 5th graders were doing.

I agree that slowing down the game is the best thing they could have done. The 2-3 split however, as Stilts said, was a bit weird. If they wanted to slow down the pace, what most coaches would do was to have Saki walk up the ball on offense (and letting Airi catch up) then set up a play from there.

Of course since these are 6th graders you need to have a relatively simple offense. So I guess it would have to be based around Airi in the post. Using her height to get baskets and kicking out the ball when doubled (and even if Airi misses since she’s shooting from the low post,the ball wouldn’t bounce that far). This way the 5th graders would have to defend closer to the basket giving Saki and the others a bit of a lead on transition.

Also, an Airi-centered offense made for a better narrative since it would’ve emphasized Aya’s hesitation when she was guarding Airi in the Suzuritani match.

True, but most of the time the game is slowed down on offense to reduce turnovers. The issue here isn’t on offense, but on defense. Even if they slowed the game down on the offensive end, the 5th grades would all still be sprinting down the court after every basket like they did before halftime, and the 6th graders would still have to sprint back to stop them. So the purpose of the 3-2 split was to have 2 people on defense the entire time. Also from the first half the 6th graders weren’t having much trouble on offense, so while going 3-2 formation was a gamble, the 5th graders defensively are pretty weak and still don’t have the makings of good teamwork, so skill triumphs over numbers in this case (like those “great” players were even if the whole defense is centred on him, that he can still score).

That makes more sense Taiakun. It seems like they almost set it up like an association football match, with certain players set to offensive or defensive roles…though in this case it was only a focus / who would get there first rather than an ironclad rule.

It doesn’t feel like we’re near the end. I would bet that they’d need at least another season to polish it off, but I don’t know what novel the latest eps have been adapted from, so don’t quote me on that.